Cosmic radiation bitflips are BS. No cosmic rays reach ground level. The chance of a, say, Al-28 nucleus successfully penetrating the entire atmosphere is as close to zero as it could be possible to get.
Basic physics. Something with such a high charge density won't penetrate ~100km of atmosphere and magnetic field. Even a basic muon wouldn't get through a sheet of aluminum foil and those are still capable of actually getting (barely) through the atmosphere.
The chances of cosmic radiation causing a bitflip are pretty much in the range of "Elvis coming into town on Nessie." Radiation originating from inside the system itself is much more likely a cause.
Attention downvoters: Cosmic rays don't even make it through the atmosphere. They are depleted atomic nuclei which essentially smash into another atom and that's the end of it. Not even multi TeV cosmic rays, which are rare, get through. They never "pass straight through the Earth" either, that's pretty much reserved for neutrinos only. Particles with energies of about 10^18 eV arrive at the rate of about one per square kilometer of atmosphere per century. These very high energy cosmic rays are detected at the ground by looking for the secondary photons, electrons, muons and neutrons that shower large areas of the ground after the primary particle impacts the atmosphere.
Your ground-level bit flips are most likely caused by terrestrial radiation sources, not extra-terrestrial ones. This is just basic physics.
Bitflips are not a RAM stability issue, they happen randomly due to radiation, but radiation is not random, especially in my area (I live not far from Chornobyl).
A small radioactive («hot») dust particle will not change average radiation level a lot, but may cause problems with memory/cpu. Simple cleaning, by blowing dust out, fixes it. Saw that dozen of times, but years ago.
Too late, radiation is returned back to almost natural level (about 30% higher than natural). I have detector of radiation, so I can measure it myself. Sometimes wind can bring some radioactive dust from Chornobyl, e.g. after forest fire, but it is much less dangerous.
